The league cup was never going to be the easiest competition for us to win and the draw had seen us with the hardest possible route to the final at Buckingham Town. To say that this competition was not the highest priority would be an understatement, however it was still like every other game we play in, one we wanted to win.
The past month has not seen the greatest of results and has gone in tandem with the club struggling to get commitment for numbers regularly, so this was probably the ideal way to take our minds of the league and get confidence in the squad high again.
The result did not necessarily tell the whole story, Brackley would say they deserved their win, but Stewkley's second half dominance saw chance after chance missed!
Stewkley were 2 down at half time, the first still annoys me when I think of it even now. A ball played through from midfield and their striker was flagged offside by the Referees Assistant. He was 3 yards offside when the ball was played and still when he received the ball, however the ref called for play to be continued and the player ran through and scored.
The assistant’s flag was still raised, but the referee failed to acknowledge or even come to speak to the assistant to establish the reasoning behind his decision.
Had the referee been in line with play and deemed the player to have been onside, then we would have no arguments with his decision, however he was at least 15 yards behind play.
To make matters harder to take, the Brackley officials, substitutes and fans all agreed that the player was off-side and it was not even marginal, but blatantly obvious! The player himself even ran to the Brackley bench saying ‘I was at least 3 yards off side’!!
The second saw Stewkley lose possession cheaply and Brackley capitalised with a good finish from 20 yards.
Reserve Manager and Keeper Kev Bowsher made some brilliant second half saves and although the result was not positive, the second half performance was a massive improvement on previous weeks.
Next week we have another week off in the league, as we entertain ADL side Wingrave in the Oving Cup.
Team: K Bowsher, A Willis (T Beasley), J Hawes, N Howard, M Hoare, G Nisbett, R Nye, S Kelly, M Millward, G Sturdy, J Howe.